


Catalyst

by andrastes_grace



Series: Royai Week 2017 [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Gen, Ishbal | Ishval, Royai Week 2017, Suicidal Thoughts, War Crimes, fire metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 13:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrastes_grace/pseuds/andrastes_grace
Summary: Written for royaiweek17 for the prompt 'Catalyst'Riza doesn't know when she fell in love.Warnings for references to sucide, gratuitous use of fire as a metaphor and inappropriate references to Professor Layton.





	Catalyst

It's impossible to pinpoint the exact moment it happens; it's flint striking stone: sharp, sudden, searing. The intensity of it is a fire ripping through her - giving her life even as it kills her.  
(it's not the harsh fire that ravages her back. This is brighter, hotter - burning and beautiful: sorrow and ecstasy combined)

In childhood they're politely formal. Friendly, not friends. They meet again as adults, standing by a grave of a man she should love, but barely knew. When Roy tells her his dream he's earnest and sweet. Something starts there, a friendship - more than friendship? - they share a secret.  
But it's nothing more. Flint strikes stone, sparks, and the flame doesn't catch.

Ishval. It could never be Ishval. She hates him almost as much as she hates herself. She sees him through her scope (and remembers - and it hurts to remember - the trust between them, the joy of learning in his voice, his gentle hands now caked in blood and ash) and her finger twitches -  
(it would be so easy)

She thinks about retiring, after Ishval is over. She thinks about something more permanent than that. But she doesn't deserve the silence, the freedom from her memories.  
"Will you follow me?"  
(the flames sear her back. His punishment as much as hers)  
_We can make this better_.  
"If that is your wish, then even into hell."  
It's nothing more than respect, a friendship reforming. They're not who they were, and the people they could've been are dead. There's a future to to be made, although they won't live to see it.

They're an excellent team, the Flame Colonel and The Hawk's Eye. She knows some people wonder what a State Alchemist needs a bodyguard for - she hears the whispers and rumours, too. They don't understand. They can't understand.  
(her heart beats faster, sometimes, when she's with him. The rhymtic striking of flint on stone, a stubborn flame that refuses to burn)

Sometimes she dreams of what could've been. If the war never happened, if she never shared her secret. She wakes with a pillow damp with tears, and memories of a life outside reality.

It's _here_ where she admits it, in the white-void room before the gate. She feels her heart burn and break, and she knows what it means, what it's always meant. The monster with the knife-edge smile tell her Roy is dead and she screams. She cries for their dream, for the past they shared, for the future that isn't theirs to have. For the life they could've lived.  
No weapons. No hope.  
And the burning, destroying, agonising realisation of love.


End file.
